Heerlen is a small town deep in the south of the Netherlands, the last tip of the province of Limburg, wedged between Belgium and Germany. The former Roman and mining town had a rich offer of music schools in the 1970s. The musician and teacher Jelmo Piovesana recruited the members of the Heerlens Percussie Ensemble from their students. As the name suggests, this ensemble mainly played drums. They used just about anything that could be beaten on: bells, marimbas, vibraphones, balaphones, congas, mbiras, Tibetan prayer wheels, electronic and, of course, conventional acoustic drums. Whoever says »drum group« now, is out. Even if the term is technically correct, the young musicians who came together to create these six pieces in 1986 have such a fine ear for even the most fragile moods that practically everything they set out to create a style begins to take off under their hands. In the title track, which the Amsterdam producer Young Marco also used once for a radio DJ set, the drummers succeed in creating a kind of polyrhythmic supernatural club music, »Black Africa« is house with nothing but a beat. That knocks!
Sophia Kennedy
Squeeze Me
City Slang